1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an mounting support for a flexible printed circuit board and a retaining apparatus having the mounting support.
2. Description of Related Art
Nowadays, electronic products have achieved ever greater levels of miniaturization in volume and diversification in function. Correspondingly, flexible printed circuit boards used in these electronic products have become smaller and smaller, and more and more complicated.
For the convenience of manufacturing, a flexible printed circuit board in a manufacturing process generally is classified into multiple electrical trace units. Each of electrical trace units belongs to a flexible printed circuit board unit. Thus, multiple flexible printed circuit board units can be manufactured simultaneously. After the flexible printed circuit board is manufactured and various electronic components are mounted thereon, laser processing such as a laser cutting is performed so as to separate the multiple flexible printed circuit board units according to the electrical trace units. Because the flexible printed circuit board is flexible and light in weight, the flexible printed circuit board can be held in place using a vacuum device of laser processing apparatus. Then, a laser beam produced by the laser processing apparatus cuts the flexible printed circuit board according to the electrical trace units, thereby separating the flexible printed circuit board into the multiple flexible printed circuit board units.
In order to ensure stable positioning under vacuum suction of the flexible printed circuit board onto the vacuum device, a contact surface of the flexible printed circuit board to be sucked by the vacuum device must be adequately flat. However, when the flexible printed circuit board is a double surface mounted flexible printed circuit board (i.e., two opposite surfaces of the flexible printed circuit board have electronic components mounted thereon), each of the two surfaces of the flexible printed circuit boards is unsmooth due to the electronic components mounted thereon. Thus, the double surface mounted flexible printed circuit board cannot be fixed on the vacuum device stably, thereby affecting laser processing precision. Furthermore, when the double surface mounted flexible printed circuit board is fixed on the vacuum device directly, the electronic components mounted may be damaged and/or removed.
What is needed, therefore, is a mounting support that is capable of retaining a double surface mounted flexible printed circuit board to process using a laser beam.